Ditto on Mary Bell's Dehydrator Cookbook.

I have a Nesco, and I'm happy with it. Only drawback is that the big plastic drying trays are a bit unwieldy to clean. (My solution: put them in the bathtub overnight, covered with hot water to which I have added about a cup of Clorox. In the morning you can rinse them off, clean and sanitized.)

Does anyone have any experience on using a cooling rack on a half sheet pan (like the one in the picture) in a very slow oven, instead of a dedicated dehydrator?

Here is a link that might be useful: cooling rack

Grainlady, you are an amazing source of information. I, too, have been thinking about a dehydrator and you have done my homework for me. I appreciate the time you take to inform us.

I have 2 Excalibur dehydrators that are 30 years old. Never had a problem with either. I keep thinking I should get new ones but every season when I pull them out they just keeping on doing their thing. I could give up my FP easier than the dehydrators. From June-October they run pretty much 24/7.

/tricia

I recommend the Nesco too. I found one at a flea market for 10 dollars and it's just like new. Before that, I had a cheap Aroma one that just had on and off.... it over dried everything. The Nesco has a temperature dial (though no on/off switch.... it's on if it's plugged in, off if it's not)! What I like about the Nesco is that the "works" are in the top instead of the bottom like a traditional dehydrator. I can't tell you how many times liquids/juices ran down the Aroma and into the motor because it was on the bottom, and did not come with an anti-gravity field. Nesco all the way!

Bobby, that sounds like one of my irons, which I got at a thrift store for $5. My previous iron still worked, but somehow I lost the part that identified the temperature setting. The new one from the thrift store has "surge of steam", which I like, but the iron is always on when plugged in, which is probably why it ended up in the thrift store. I would never leave an unattended iron plugged in anyway, however. I like things to be OFF when I am done with them, and I now turn off my power strip when I turn off my computer, as my external hard drives look like they are using too much electricity when off.

As for the food dehydrators - I am wondering where I would have to go to attend one of grainlady's classes! I plan to order the NESCO from Amazon - I've wanted a food dehydrator for a long time. I want to use it for vegetables which I would then put into soups. I've noticed that the dehydrated vegetables I get in the dried Japanese soups I buy are excellent - especially the dried cabbage, which retains its crunch texture when rehydrated. I wonder whether it would work with figs, even though I did not bring fig cuttings with me to my new house. I love dried vegetables more than dried fruit, but I am now addicted to dried fruit packets from Trader Joe's, especially the wild blueberry.

Lars

I used an old Harvest Maid dehydrator for years, and I mean in excess of 20 years. Finally it just melted one day when I was drying zucchini candy.

elery promptly replaced it for me with an Excaliber, the 9 tray model. I use it to make that zucchini candy, dehydrate hot peppers for elery because he uses copious amounts in everything from eggs to chili, I dry lots of apples. I've done pears and peaches, bananas for the kids, green beans, jerky and I use it to make yogurt because it's a big square box and I can fit 8 quart canning jars with yogurt in it when I remove the trays.

the only thing I was not successful at was drying tomatoes. I tried to dry them crispy, so I could make tomato powder and although I left the darned things in there for days, not hours, they never did get crisp, just "flexible" and very tough.

Anyway, I liked my old one and the new Excaliber works very nicely too, I can heartily recommend either.

Annie

Posted by arley "----Does anyone have any experience on using a cooling rack on a half sheet pan (like the one in the picture) in a very slow oven, instead of a dedicated dehydrator?"

I am only guessing:

I think convection oven may do a decent job.
The problem with other types of ovens is that there is no air circulation to help with drying, in addition, the oven is normally not ventilated, so it may get hot, but the moisture has no place to go. Still, you can do it, but not as well as a dehydrator.

Annie, after I dehydrated the tomatoes, I bake them until they are crispy then I grind them into powder.

dcarch

My oven has a dehydrator selection and came with a large drying rack. I've never used it because I've got the Excaliburs. :(

/tricia

Thanks, dcarch, I may try that next year. I gave up and threw the ones I did this year into soup, they weren't fit for anything else after 40 hours or so of dehydrating. What a fiasco that was...

Annie

Thank you! I think I may get an Excaliber.

I am a fig researcher and am studying the growing and fruiting characteristics of over 100 different varieties of figs. Does anyone know how well food dehydrators work in drying figs?? Will they produce a decent product with a good shelf life? Will golf ball sized figs need to be cut in half to fit between the shelves? I've been looking at the 1000 watt digital Nesco dehydrator.

Dan

Dehydrator will also kind of cooks while drying. Your figs may not have viable seeds after drying, if that's what you are using it for.

Figs do not need to be completely dried. The surgar content will preserve it.

dcarch

danab_z9_la (Dan) -

I hope this information from a homemaker will make your research day for you.

You will find USDA (United Stated Department of Agriculture) information at the link below on preparation of fruits (including figs) for dehydrating, and it may help answer your other questions - so read it carefully and take notes.

Maybe you haven't studied this yet, but storage time of all food, including home-dehydrated foods, depends on several things:
1.) Heat
2.) Light
3.) Moisture
4.) Oxygen

Shelf-life of storage foods are usually calculated at an "average temperature", often called "room temperature" which is usually 70-degrees F. To maximize the shelf-life the optimum storage temperature would be between 40-60-degrees F. for "room-temperature" storage. Zero-degrees F or colder for even longer storage time, and the food will also maintain more nutritional value at freezer temperatures.

If you are going to freeze the food, you may want to use a method called DEHYDROFREEZING which is a combination of partially dehydrating the food and then freezing it.

Fruit will normally have 80% of the moisture removed during dehydrating (you can weigh your food before drying, and then post-drying to determine how much moisture has been removed - Figs contain about 78% water before drying - you do the math...). When you use dehydrofreezing you dehydrate 70% of the moisture BUT the food MUST be stored in the freezer to avoid bacteria growth. Benefits of dehydrofreezing: the fruit will have good flavor and color and they reconstitute in about one-half the time it takes for traditionally dried foods.

Information you can easily find in books at your local library on the subject, or on-line, will show most dried fruit can be stored in an air-tight container (NOT vacuum-sealed or with an oxygen absorber) for one year at 60-degrees F, or six months at 80-degrees F. Vegetables have about half the shelf-life of fruits because fruits contain sugar and sugar extends shelf-life.

Extend that time to double normal storage time by vacuum-sealing (oxygen-free). Extend it even longer by vacuum-sealing AND storing in the freezer.

Information from "How To Dry Foods" by Deanna DeLong (a book commonly found in libraries, or available through Inter-Library Loan - or purchase it through Amazon.com):

Figs are excellent for drying. Storage time for best quality at 34-degrees F - 18-24-months or 5-8-years at 0-degrees F.

Three pounds of fresh figs makes 1-pound dried. Fifty-five percent of the weight of dried figs is natural sugar.

Check out the book for more information including: -varieties best for drying
-which fruit to select
-water content before drying
-how to prepare figs
-pretreatment (if any)
-drying temperature
-dryness test
-how to use

Oddly enough, I pulled all this information from my home library and information I teach in home-dehydrating classes I give. No big Government Research Grant funding this - just a nice person who took my personal time to enlighten someone doing (ah hem) "research".

-Grainlady

Here is a link that might be useful: Drying Fruits

Thank you Grainlady.

I'm a retired chemist and have the equipment to determine the water and sugar content of my figs.....no Grant money for me either. It is just a hobby that I really love. I'm wanting to determine if some of the rare figs that I grow will produce a nice dried product like the dried figs that come from Turkey and California. I have a Black Mission tree and should be able to determine if a food dehydrator is able to dry them to a similar quality to the dried ones coming out of California. I would be very happy with those results.

dcarch, figs have a weird sex life. It takes a special tiny little fig wasp that must travel from a male fig to a female fig in order to fertilize the seeds. The only place the fig wasp can live in the entire US is in a small section of California. Those tiny wasps had to be imported into California many years ago in order to make their Calimyrna figs ripen. All figs produced anywhere else in the US (except in California) will have infertile seeds Only in California can one grow a Calimyrna type fig because it needs the wasps. For this reason, fig trees are always propagated by cuttings. Seeds will still be present in the figs.......just infertile.

Dan

Dan, I try not to tell people too much about the weird sex life of figs. When I tell them that the wasps die inside the figs, they get grossed out. :-)

Let me ask you a question. I have been thinking of getting a dwarf fig tree for my sunroom. I am in NYC area. What would you recommend?

I saw this in Gurney's catoalog:
"Smoky gray-green foliage adorns these 3- to 4-ft. plants. Move outdoors in the summer, and let the bees pollinate the plant�figs will bear within 2-4 years.
"

Bees? They are supposed to know. Go fig ure!

dcarch

dcarch, hands down the best tasting fig that does well in most parts of the country is one called Violette De Bordeaux. It does real well in pots and exhibits a dwarfing tendency. It will need lots of outside sunshine for it to fruit properly. This variety can be ordered by mail order from Edible Landscaping Nursery. Fully ripe VDB figs are to die for good. I have eaten some that have literally dropped me to my knees in praise and thanks for such a creation.

Check out Garden Web's fig forum and you will find me and hundreds of other figaholics from around the world discussing figs. FYI, quite a few fignuts reliably grow figs up in New York.......some even into Canada.

Dan

Thanks Dan. I knew I could count on you.

For your amusement:

http://ths.gardenweb.com/forums/load/cooking/msg1014290316789.html

dcarch

Wow dcarch!! That green fig pig is so neat looking. Ha haaaaaa. thanks for the link.

Dan

dehdrating

I love my Excalibur 3926TB. I started using it recently and it's amazing. It pretty big so would not work in a small kitchen. It has all the bells and whistles - on/off switch, thermostat and the 26 hr timer (many of the ones I looked at only had a 19 hr timer which may not be long enough). I love the rectangular shape as well. I like making fruit roll-ups and it is much easier dealing with a square shaped product then a round one. I haven't had it for long but people say Excaliburs last forever. We'll see!